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http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ If you work with people who dont care, youre screwed. Nothing will ever

http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ If you work with people who dont care, youre screwed. Nothing will ever work to force them to actively engage with the process of creating good software. ..but, surprisingly, when you do work with people who do care, they self organize remarkably well. The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. Thats been my personal experience, over the years. The problem that has to be addressed is convincing people to care, and self improve. Forcing a process on the unwilling is going to fail no matter what you do.

zelos 11y ago
> The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. So where's my Half Life 3, dammit ;-)
Anderkent 11y ago
And often they self-organise by taking an established process and bending it into something that works out for them. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean designing a process is useless - if it's a good base it'll be easier for the team to adapt it into something that is good for them.
matthewmacleod 11y ago
I agree that a group of people who don't care will almost always produce substandard results. I don't agree that people who do care necessarily self-organise well, or that this self-organisation is compatible with other business goals. Sometimes it works, and a group of engineers et al. do a good job of forming a coherent team with minimal process. Valve's maybe an example – I don't know. My experience is that this is the exception, rather than the common case. A good process can provide tools that help good people who care communicate and deliver more effectively. They help us to keep track of how we're performing and analyse pain points, and to make sure that there are methods for dealing with common problems. For example, if my team felt that daily stand-ups were an inconvenience that weren't helpful, then we wouldn't do them. That's the goal; there's no cast-iron set of rules, just a generally applicable set of principles to follow.
- philippeback 11y ago
  Some kicks in the assets and firing bad apples also go a long way in keeping the team focused. Some people are self motivated and other needs their slap in the morning (for some, that's a couple of times daily).
  - rpcope1 11y ago
    You know, I probably don't know as much as you do, but every time I've ever seen lots of negative reinforcement get applied to teams both in software and outside, it seems to have the opposite effect. Sometimes you have to quietly handle the most toxic people, but on the whole, when you take this sort of approach to managing, I would be very surprised if you only make the situation drastically worse in the long run.
chucksmash 11y ago
> the Valve megacorporation Why is Valve a megacorporation vs. just a corporation?

zelos 11y ago

> The Valve megacorporation is fundamentally based on this. It works. So where's my Half Life 3, dammit ;-)

Anderkent 11y ago

And often they self-organise by taking an established process and bending it into something that works out for them. Which is fine. But that doesn't mean designing a process is useless - if it's a good base it'll be easier for the team to adapt it into something that is good for them.

matthewmacleod 11y ago

I agree that a group of people who don't care will almost always produce substandard results. I don't agree that people who do care necessarily self-organise well, or that this self-organisation is compatible with other business goals. Sometimes it works, and a group of engineers et al. do a good job of forming a coherent team with minimal process. Valve's maybe an example – I don't know. My experience is that this is the exception, rather than the common case. A good process can provide tools that help good people who care communicate and deliver more effectively. They help us to keep track of how we're performing and analyse pain points, and to make sure that there are methods for dealing with common problems. For example, if my team felt that daily stand-ups were an inconvenience that weren't helpful, then we wouldn't do them. That's the goal; there's no cast-iron set of rules, just a generally applicable set of principles to follow.

philippeback 11y ago
Some kicks in the assets and firing bad apples also go a long way in keeping the team focused. Some people are self motivated and other needs their slap in the morning (for some, that's a couple of times daily).
- rpcope1 11y ago
  You know, I probably don't know as much as you do, but every time I've ever seen lots of negative reinforcement get applied to teams both in software and outside, it seems to have the opposite effect. Sometimes you have to quietly handle the most toxic people, but on the whole, when you take this sort of approach to managing, I would be very surprised if you only make the situation drastically worse in the long run.

chucksmash 11y ago

> the Valve megacorporation Why is Valve a megacorporation vs. just a corporation?